Rattus Faber

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"You have rats: and some of the ratholes have been dynamited open, not gnawed. An infestation of L.B.s, aka rattus faber! Viciously intelligent rats who set traps for humans! No landlord or Constable will tangle with these."

Rattus Faber

Rattus faber are an unusual species of rat: they are sapient and can make tools, even complicated weaponry like rifles and explosives, and generally operate like tiny cunning humans. (They are bipedal as well.) There is a large population of these on Pigmote Isle, though that is not their location of origin. Where exactly they came from, and how they evolved from normal rats, is unknown.

Dead rats are often tied up on strings and used as food among London's lower class; members of the Topsy King's court are particularly fond of this delicacy.

A group of exceptionally dangerous rats by the name of the Rat Brigade roam the High Wilderness in search of employment. Their members have been scattered, however, after being betrayed by one of their own. 

By the way, "L.B.," their colloquial nickname, is just short for Little Bastard.

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The Rat Saints

"The Saint of Rats, a fey and changeling beast enshrouded in moss and embraced by words. He offers gifts to tongue-tied rats, but the dreams have an uneasy quality. Not all gifts are to be desired."

The Rattus Faber have their own Saint... or Saints, depending on whether their collective subconscious remembers a real Saint or invents new ones to take its place.

Known rat-saints include:

• Anatoly the Gold, who built a body out of ratwork, and who lived on, ticking, for long after his funeral.
• Sylvia Stumptail, a Bandit-Chief of the Prickfinger Wastes.
• A monk known as the Penitent, who took a vow of silence and offered blessings beneath the great beast of St Fiacre’s.
• Gerelt the Wick, who drowned in wax and lit the way for her litter to run to safety.
• Pious Henry, who, by all accounts, wasn’t very interesting at all.
• Spot the Unmaker, a piebald beast born on the Salt Lions.
• Midnight Delger, who emptied a Khan’s vaults without being seen.
• Jemmy of the Diamond Eye, maker of the most beautiful ratwork ever to grace the Carnelian Coast.
• Blake Brass-Horn, [who] (they say) treated with Goat-Demons and learned the secret printing and metalworking techniques of Hell.
• One who is not a saint with a name.

Notable and Typical Rattus Faber

• 
  A Talkative Rattus Faber.
• 
  A Working Rat.
• 
  A Rattus Faber Bandit Chief.
• 
  The Scuttering Squad. The best mercenaries the Neath has to offer.
• 
  An albino rat. Poor thing.
• 
  The Piebald Dreamer, a dashing adventurer